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PAMPHLETS 


ON 


THE  COUNTRY  CHURCH 


vol,  2 


A  Liberal  Offer 

'T'HE  Lessons  in  Social  Christianity,  published  monthly  by  the  American  Institute 
■*•       of  Social  Service  (Dr.  Josiah  Strong,  President),  are  now  used  by  hundreds 
of  clashes   throughout  the  country.     The  subscription  price,  50  cents  per  year, 
brings  them  within  the  reach  of  all  members  of  a  cletss. 

We  believe  the  message  they  contain  should  be  heard  by  every  Bible,  Adult 
Sunday  School,  or  Y.  M.  C.  A.  Class,  and  Church  Brotherhood  in  the  country. 
To   this   end,   and   to   repay   somewhat   the    work   of   organizing   classes,    we   offer 

FREE 

To  Every  Minister  or  Layman 

who  organizes  a  new  class,  or  induces  a  clciss  already  organized,  to  take   up    these 
studies,  and  who  secures 

50  SUBSCRIPTIONS  OR  OVER 

One  cloth  bound  copy  of 

The  New  Encyclopedia  of  Social  Reform 

Edited  by  W.  D.  P.  Bliss  Price,  $7.50 

"A  perfect  mine  of  information. "—Dr.  ALBERT  SHAW,  Editor  "Review  of  Reviews." 

EVERY  10  SUBSCRIPTIONS 

One  cloth  bound  copy  of 

Studies  in  Social  Christianity.  Voi.  i.  cioth,  75  Cents 

A  small  Encyclopedia  in  itself 
or 

My  Religion  in  Every  Day  Life,  cioth,  50  Cents 

By  DR.  JOSIAH  STRONG 

A  readjustment  of  faith  to  tlie  clianged  conditions  of  civilization 

Just  Published 

EVERY  5  NEW  SUBSCRIPTIONS 

One  paper  covered  copy  of 

Studies  in  Socia!  Christianity.   Voi.  i.  eo  Cents 

ii^"This  offer  is  open  to  any  member  of  a  class 


American  Institute  of  Social  Service 

Bible  House,  Astor  Place,  New  York  City 


Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  Lessons,  Series  No.  3 


SUBJECTS  FOR  1911 


FIRST  QUARTER 
The  Church  and  Social  Purity 

JANUARY:    Safe-Guarding     Children     and 
Youth 

1.  The  Scriptural  Principles  Involved. 

2.  The  Dangers  of  Ignorance. 

3.  How  to  Give  Neededlnstruction. 

4.  Impurity  in  the  Schools. 

5.  Impure  Literature  and  Pictures. 

FEBRUARY:    Amusement* 

1.  The  Need  of  Amusements. 

2.  The  Perils  in  Amusements. 

3.  Tne  Supervision  of  Amusements. 

4.  Religion  and  Amusements. 
MARCH:    The  Social  Evil 

1.  Gravity  of  the  Situation. 

2.  The  White  Slave  TrafiBc. 

3.  Methods  in  the  Social  Crusade. 

4.  The  Double  Standard  and  Christian 

Teaching. 

SECOND  QUARTER 
Immigpration 


THIRD  QUARTER 
The  Church  and  the  Workingman 

JULY :  The  Gradual  and  Rezisonable  Reduc- 
tion of  the  Hours  of  Labor  to  the 
Lowest  Practicable  Point,  and  that 
Degree  of  Leisure  for  AH  which  is  a 
Condition  of  the  Highest  Human  Life 

1.  Existing  Hours  of  Labor. 

2.  Evils  of  Long  Hours. 

3.  Advantages  of  Short  Hours. 

4.  Effect  Upon  Employers'  Interests, 

5.  What  Can  the  Church  and  Organ- 

ized Labor  Do  About  It  ? 

AUGUST :  A  Release  from  Employment  One 
Day  in  Seven 

1.  The  Workers  Need  of  Rest  One  Day 

in  Seven. 

2.  The  Domestic  and  Social  Need. 

3.  What  Sunday  Work  is  Necessary  ? 

4.  What  Can  We  Do  About  It  ? 


APRIL:    Scope  of  Problem 

1.  The  Internationalism  of  Christ. 

2.  Facts  of  Immigration. 

3.  Economic  and  Industrial  Effects. 

4.  The  Immigrant  in  the  City. 

5.  The  Immigrant  in  the  Country. 
MAY:     The  Needs  Created  by  Immigration 

1.  The  Need  of  Control. 

2.  The  Need  of  Distribution. 

3.  The  Need  of  Assimilation. 

4.  Christian  Treatment  of  the  Immi- 

grant. 

JUNE:     What  the  Churches  Can  Do 

1.  What  the  Churches  Are  Doing. 

2.  What  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  is  Doing. 

3.  Our  Opportunity  Through  the  Re- 

turning Immigrant. 

4.  The  Church  and  the  Immigrant.  dom  During  the  Year. 

The  Services  of  Dr.  J.  H.  Ecob  are  available  for  addresses  on  week  days  or  Sundays.    This 
involves  no  expense  except  for  traveling  and  entertainment. 


SEPTEMBER  :  A  Living  Wage  as  a  Minimum 
in  Every  Industry,  and  the  Highest 
Wage  that  Each  Industry  Can  Afford 

1.  Existing  Wages. 

2.  The  Rising  Cost  of  Living. 

3.  Organized  Labor  and  Wages. 

4.  Christian  Principles  as  to  Wages. 

FOURTH  QUARTER 
Dangerous  and  Unsanitary  Occupa- 
tions and  Conditions 

OCTOBER:     Accidents 

1.  Christ's  Valuation  of  Life. 

2.  Our  Increasing  Number  of  Accidents. 

3.  The  Reduction  of  Accidents  in  For- 
eign Countries. 

4.  What  We  Should  Do. 

5.  Employers'  Liability. 

NOVEMBER:    Sanitation  and  Hygiene 

1.  Health  a  Christian  Duty. 

2.  Unsanitary  Occupations. 

3.  Sanitary  Legislation. 

4.  Housing  and  Sanitation. 

DECEMBER :    Tuberculosis 

1.  The  Tuberculosis  Crusade. 

2.  Economic  Causes  of  Tuberculosis. 

3.  The  Need  of  Education. 

4.  What  the  Church  Can  Do. 

5.  Review  of  the  Progress  of  the  King- 


Dr.    Strong's   Articles  and  These    Studies  are    Printed    Each    Month  in 
THE  HOMILETIC  REVIEW,  44-60  East  23d  Street,  New  York 


The 
Problem  of  the  Country  Church 


Synod   Addresses 

Johnstown,  N.  Y., 

October,  1909. 


M»«Mwok-af»e*lt^ 


These  addresses  were  delivered  before  the  Synod  of 
New  York,  held  in  Johnstown,  N.  Y.,  October  19-21,  1909, 
and  are  published  by  order  of  the  Sjmod. 

CHARLES  Mckenzie, 

Chairman  Committee  of  Arrangements. 


The  Country  Community  and  the 
Country  Church. 


By  the  REV.  WARREN  H.  WILSON.  Ph.  D. 
Department  of  Church  and  Labor, 
NEW  YORK 

The  country  church  is  married  to  the  country  community.  She  is  sensitive 
to  anything  which  has  affected  the  country  community.  These  two  have  not 
always  maintained  their  ties  and  obligations.  The  community  has  some- 
times sulked,  and  scarce  spoken  to  the  church  for  a  period.  The  church 
has  limited  her  services  to  a  few  and  narrowed  her  love  to  a  dry,  formal 
duty.  She  has  ministered  sometimes  to  a  calling  list,  not  to  the  town, 
not  to  the  whole  population  as  she  should.  But  it  still  remains  that  one  call 
which  can  bring  the  country  community  upstanding,  all  together,  is  the 
call    of   religion. 

The  church  is  the  sensitive  register  of  the  social  life  and  the  economic 
condition  of  the  people.  People  talk  about  the  church  being  narrow;  if 
so,  it  is  because  that  community  is  narrow.  When  the  community  is  broad 
minded  and  large  hearted  the  church  is  democratic  and  progressive.  When 
the  community  is  aristocratic,  the  church  is  proud.  What  more  can  you 
expect?    Shall  not  two  who  are  joined  in  vital  bonds  agree? 

Three  phases  of  community  expanse  in  America  have  written  themselves 
deeply  into  the  church.  They  are  the  experience  of  the  promotors,  of  thi 
exploiters  and  of  the  cultivators  of  the  soil.  Each  has  had  its  church,  in 
the  above  order,  and  the  faithfulness  of  the  church  to  the  American  commu- 
nity would  require  that  in  no  other  order  should  the  country  church  de- 
velop.    Her  progress  should  be  that  of  the  population  in  which  she  serves. 

The  pioneer  was  a  lone  worker.  In  the  woods  his  axe  alone  sounded. 
From  his  cabin  no  other  was  reached  with  the  eye,  or  hy  even  a  far  cry 
of  the  voice.  He  lived  and  thought  and  battled  alone.  His  theology  was 
therefore  a  doctrine  of  personal  salvation  which  is  a  completed  treasure  of 
the  church.  It  Is  the  dogma  of  freedom  and  responsibility.  He  was  a  man 
of  impulse  and  material  for  he  practiced  all  the  trades,  from  shoemaking 
to  cutting  hair  and  cutting  grass.  Adam  Smith  made  clear  the  dependence 
of  the  worker  at  varied  trades  upon  impulse.  The  pioneer  used  rum  as  a  stim- 
ulus of  his  great  feats.  His  religion  was  one  of  the  emotions.  Yearly  or 
periodic  revivals  were  his  only  or  his  primary  method  of  church  work. 
Finney  and  Nettleton  made  a  fine  art  of  the  pioneer  religion;  but  neither 
of  these  could  revive  rural  New  York  today,  because  the  pioneer  is  gone,  and 
the  scientific,   systematic  farmer  has  come. 

The  second  stage  of  communal  life  was  that  of  the  exploiter.  He  was  the 
man  who  saw  the  value  of  wealth  for  man's  use.  He  went  to  California 
In  1849,  not  to  settle,  but  to  scoop  up  a  fortune  and  come  back.  He  in  all 
the  States  turned  from  farming  to  mining  and  oil  prospecting.  Coal  or  iron, 
mica  or  even  a  clay  bed  gave  him  promises  of  a  fortune.  His  church  is 
the  church  whose  chief  doctrine  is  giving,  building,  endowing.  It  has  been 
a  great  and  valid  stage  of  American  church  life.     But  we  have  come  to  the 


outer  edge  of  the  value  of  money  for  spiritual  things.  In  the  past  two  years 
we  have  seen  the  limit  beyond  which  wealth  has  no  use  for  the  gains  of 
the  soul  or  for  the  upbuilding  of  the  community.  Nevertheless  the  period  of 
the  exploiter  has  been  a  great  one  in  the  growth  of  the  American  community 
and  church.  Its  doctrine  of  consecrated  wealth  and  giving  is  a  gain  forever 
valuable. 

The  third  period  which  is  just  now  beginning  is  that  of  the  cultivation 
of  the  soil.  The  exploiter  has  loved  the  land  as  a  man  may  love  a 
woman— greedily,  selfishly.  They  have  torn  away  the  forests.  They  have 
violated  the  fair  hillside  with  a  mine.  They  have  dishonored  the  country-side 
with  the  economic  waste  of  black  smoke. 

But  the  Bible  speaks  of  "managing  the  land."  I  never  knew  its  meaning 
till  I  saw  Tennessee  and  Illinois  this  year.  There  side  by  side  is  the  outraged 
land  and  the  lands  cherished,  cultivated,  educated.  The  systematic  farmer  loves 
the  land  and  studies  it,  trains  it,  fertilizes  it,  educates  it.  The  soil  of  my 
first  parish  in  New  York,  at  Quaker  Hill,  is  producing  more  at  the  close  of 
two  centuries  of  cultivation  than  at  the  beginning.  Man  by  living  on  the 
land  has  learned  how  to  give  it  more  than  he  takes  from  it. 

The  church  of  the  systematic  farmer  has  come  in  some  places.  It  is 
institutional,  social,  using  qualities  more  than  quantities;  it  guides  every 
policy  uipon  a  comprehension  of  the  entire  problem.  It  serves  the  whole 
sight  in  a  Christian  civilization  than  several  small  struggling  churches  in 
population.  It  builds  for  the  future,  for  the  permanence  of  all  values,  as  well 
as  for  immediate  results.  The  same  population  who  are  scientific  and  sys- 
tematic on  the  farm  may  be  trained  to  be  systematic  and  progressive  in  the 
ehurdh. 

So  the  country  church,  married  to  the  community,  has  shared  the  com- 
munity's history.  She  has  been  poor  and  has  toiled,  she  has  slept  and  shall 
be  awakened  with  the  country  community.  She  has  not  always  been  keenly 
in  love  with  her  mate,  as  married  folks  are  wont  to  do.  She  is  like  the 
Scotchman  who  was  sitting  weeping  on  a  stile  by  the  roadside,  and  a  passerby 
stopped  to  ask,  "Why,  Aleck,  what  makes  you  so  sad?"  "Oh,  Donald  Mc- 
Fadden's  wife  is  dead!"  "So,  indeed,  but  I  did  not  know  you  were  related 
to  her."  "Oh,  no,  she  was  no  kin  o'  mine — but  Och,  oh!  everybody's  gettin' 
a  change  but  me!"  The  country  minister  and  church  are  often  forgetful 
of  the  charms  and  the  value  of  the  country  comumnity.  They  desire  a  change, 
but  their  life  is  bound  up  in  the  community's  life. 

The  country  church,  married  to  the  community,  is  poor,  while  the  coun- 
try community  is  fast  becoming  rich.  The  values  of  all  farm  products  and 
of  farm  acres  are  swiftly  rising.  The  farmers  have  lifted  their  mortgages, 
painted  their  barns  and  ordered  automobiles.  But  the  church  is  out  of  repair, 
the  pastor's  salary  is  in  arrears,  and  the  minister  is  a  slave  to  humiliating 
poverty.  The  prospered  farmer  would  not  borrow  on  his  once  mortgaged  lands; 
but  he  will  borrow  from  his  pastor  each  month  a  proportion  of  his  salary, 
which  he  holds  back.  Why  doesn't  he  go  to  the  bank  and  get  it  at  six 
per  cent  instead  of  taking  a  forced  loan  from  G-od's  servant  without  interest? 
In  our  Toledo  "One  Day  Conference  on  the  Country  Church"  last  month  the 
city  pastors  compared  notes  as  to  some  men  from  country  churches  who  did 
not  attend.  Dr.  Shepherd  told  of  one  who  after  some  hesitation  finally,  in 
response  to  his  urging  the-  invitation,  pulled  out  his  purse  and  showed  its 
contents.  "That's  all  the  money  I  have-^ixty  cents!"  he  said,  "and  my 
church  cannot  send  me.  They  are  behind  on  my  salary  now!"  Whereupon 
the  pastor,  Mr.  Dugan,  rose  and  said:  "If  you  men  will  repeat  this  con- 
ference in  the  early  future— so  deeply  do  I  appreciate  its  value— I  have  a 
member  whom  I  have  seen  this  afternoon,  who  will  pay  the  expenses  of  all  the 
ministers  to  the  Presbytery,  and  an  officer  with  each,  in  order  that  they 
may  get  the  benefit."  There  is  the  contrast,  father  and  brethren,  between 
the  ipoverty  of  the  country  church,  starving  and  enslaving  and  degrading 
the  minister,  and  the  opulence  of  the  city  church,  which  (has  men  of  wealth 
ready  at  a  word  from  the  pastor  to  entertain  a  whole  Presbytery,  and  pay 
the   traveling   expenses   of   his   guests! 

The   Synod   of   Ohio   has   a   plan   for   the   evangelization   of   the   pocketbooks 


3 

of  the  country  churches.  Evangelists  are  supplied  to  country  churches,  for 
a  ten  days'  engagement.  They  are  drilled  in  their  work.  Among  their  tasks 
is  a  meeting  on  Friday  night  of  the  church  officers  and  leading  men.  A 
definite  statement  of  the  church's  condition  is  made  to  them;  and  a  financial 
proposal  for  the  future.  If  they  object,  Synod's  agent  quietly  says,  "Gentle- 
men, I  was  sent  here  instructed  to  do  this."  They  uniformly  rise  to  their 
duty  and  the  church  is  put  on  a  financial  basis  adequate  to  the  minister's 
duties  and   needs. 

"The  best  thing  that  has  come  out  of  Synod,"  cried  a  layman  of  Bowling 
Green,  when  this  story  was  told,  "is  your  financial  system."  The  human 
mind  acts  by  waves  of  social  opinion.  The  purse  has  to  be  evangelized  just 
as  every  other  organ  has  its  commitments  and  its  promises.  I  know  no 
better  agency  for  this  service  than  the  Synod.  What  has  God  given  us  our 
splendid  denominational  machinery  for.  Heresy-hunting?  No,  it  is  for  deep 
plowing  this  worn  out  soil,  harrowing,  mellowing  and  seeding  it,  that  the 
country  community  may,  through  the  country  church,  bear  increasing  har- 
vests in  the  coming  seasons  of  God's  providential  husbandry. 

"In  the  average  church,"  declared  a  hard  headed  man,  "nine-tenths  of 
your  difficulties  will  disappear  when  you  straighten  out  your  financial  diffi- 
culties." The  trouble  is  that  the  giving  of  the  church  is  unconverted  from 
pioneer  standards.  The  country  church  member  gives  upon  the  impulse  of 
a  wood  chopper,  but  he  farms  on  the  advice  of  Cornell  professors.  It  is  for 
the  Synods  to  undertake  deliberately,  as  Ohio  has  done,  the  specific  con- 
version of  the  farmer's  conscience  and  religious  life  to  the  systematic  grow- 
ing, without  which  no  church  can  live  in  this  day  of  avstematic  industry 
and   organized   social   life. 

But  the  country  minister  is  mentally  poor,  as  well  as  "^nancially  enslaved. 
Think  of  the  mental  resources  of  the  young  graduate  of  one  our  most 
noted  seminaries  who  is  still  unplaced  after  six  months,  and  is  writing  to 
Synodical  superintendents  asking  for  a  charge,  but  insisting  that  he  shall 
be  assigned  to  no  field  or  combination  of  fields  where  he  shall  have  to  keep 
a  horse!  Could  such  a  man  hold  the  respect  of  farmers?  Could  he  who  is 
collared  and  breeched  and  hitched  up  to  such  a  condition  win  the  respect 
of  mechanics,   or  grocers  or  college  students? 

The  country  needs  not  the  commonplace  man,  but  the  best  man.  Espe- 
cially the  best  preachers.  Nowhere  are  good  sermons  valued  more  than  in 
farming  communities.  I  heard  of  a  theologian  who  had  his  first  call  to  a 
country  community,  and  he  asked  his  professor,  "What  equipment  shall  I 
take.  Doctor,  to  serve  my  people  best?"  And  the  Profes.sor  replied,  "Take 
your  best  sermon!"  Years  afterward,  having  preached  well,  he  was  called 
to  a  city  charge,  and  again  he  applied  to  the  professor  for  advice  as  to  his 
equipment,  and  this  time  the  advice  was  "My  boy,  to  the  city  charge  take 
your   best   suit   of   clothes." 

The  country  minister  is  depressed.  He  wants  a  change.  He  sees  no 
charm  in  rural  life.  He  has  no  purpose  of  lasting  service.  He  needs  a  pro- 
paganda of  rural  life.  He  must  be  the  prophet  of  the  country,  to  clothe  the 
fields  with  charm,  and  to  grace  the  life  of  the  farm  home  with  culture  and 
the  enthusiasm  of  rural  life.  He  must  be  the  master  of  the  rural  conscience, 
and    the   apostle   of   rural   leadership. 

For  this  what  preparation  does  he  get  in  the  seminaries?  In  our  "One 
Day  Conference  on  the  Country  Church,"  which  the  department  of  Church 
and  Labor  has  been  holding  in  six  great  agricultural  States,  the  criticism 
of  the  seminaries  has  been  unusual  intense;  and,  most  significant  of  all,  it 
has  been  voiced  by  the  devoted  sons  and  diligent  supporters  of  these  insti- 
tutions. 

At  Birmingham,  Pa.,  the  first  man  to  leap  to  his  feet— to  his  one  foot — 
like  a  soldier  as  he  is,  was  by  Gen.  James  A.  Brown,  ex-Governor  of  the  State. 
He  declared  that  the  theological  student  should  be  trained  in  the  agricultural 
college,  as  a  preparation  for  ministering  to  farmers.  "He  should  know,"  he 
insisted,  "how  to  bore  a  hole  In  the  ground  and  tell  a  farmer  whether  that 
spot  will  be  suitable  for  planting  a  Baldwin  apple  tree!" 


This  criticism  again  and  again  we  heard.  I  understand  that  President 
Kenyon  L.  Butterfleld,  author  of  "Chapters  in  Rural  Progress,"  urges  the 
same  remedy,  the  training  of  the  minister  in  the  agricultural  college.  But 
the  ministers  who  are  serving  in  the  country  feel  the  need  of  training  in 
sociology.  And  why  not?  The  knowledge  of  vegetable  life  might  help  them 
a  little.  But  they  are  responsible  for  knowing  human  life,  the  subject  of 
sociology! 

When  I,  while  a  student  in  Seminary  went  to  Columbia  University  to 
study  geology,  I  was  warned  by  friends,  and  I  partly  feared,  that  it  "would 
take  me  out  of  the  ministry."  And  when  Professor  Giddings  assigned  me  to 
write  a  paper  upon  a  country  church  and  community,  I  objected,  preferring 
some  spread-eagle  topic,  now  forgotten.  But  in  the  meantime  the  church 
I  love  to  serve  has  created  the  department  of  Church  and  Labor,  under  the 
leadership  of  Mr.  Stelzle  who  approaches  the  matter  not  from  books,  but 
from  experience.  And  now  the  whole  missionary  problem  has  been  transformed 
from  a  geographical  to  a  sociological  basis,  and  here  I  am  speaking  to 
you  upon  a  sociological  religious  theme,    "The  Country  Church." 

The  country  church  is  suffering  from  profound  and  wide-spread  depres- 
sion. Agricultural  districts  are  differentiated  from  other  industries.  They 
have  their  own  capitals,  their  own  leaders,  and  their  own  avenues  of  dis- 
cussion and  feeling.  Withini  these  fields  the  country  church  is  separated 
off.  The  ministers  feel  themselves  almost  ostracized  by  their  brethren  in 
the  same  denomination.  "What  citj-  minister  offers  to  exchange  with  a 
country  minister  in  these  days,"  cried  a  synodical  superintendent,  in  one  of 
the  Country  Church  Conferences.  The  country  minister  finds  a  meagre  ideal 
of  the  country  church  imposed  upon  him.  Nothing  is  expected  of  him,  and 
as  little  as  possible  is  given  to  him.  This  condition  cannot  be  permanent, 
and  does  not  express  the  real  mind  and  feeling  of  the  church.  We  are  living 
in  a  state  of  temporary  excitement  over  big  business  and  the  big  city.  But 
all  the  more  on  this  account  does  the  country  minister  feel  the  keen  injus- 
tice of  this  neglect  by  the  church  as  a  whole.  The  effect  upon  him  is  to 
arouse  an  almost  universal  desire  for  a  change.  "All  my  ministers,"  said  a 
Methodist  Bishop,  "desire  to  go  to  two  places  to  live;  New  York  City  and 
heaven,  and  they  want  to  go  to  New  York  City  first."  Our  conferences  have 
brought  to  light  a  significant  number  of  contented  and  successful  country 
ministers,  who  are  perfectly  at  home  in  their  work.  One  man  has  lived  within 
sixty  miles  of  New  York  for  twenty  years  on  $300.00  a  year  and  supported 
a  wife.  Another,  in  Pennsylvania,  has  brought  up  a  family  of  sons  who 
are  to  enter  the  Presbyterian  ministry.  These  men  are  not  impatient  with 
the  country;  but  their  number  is  very  small.  Most  country  ministers  are 
restless  and  discontented,  and  the  state  of  feeling  throughout  their  denomina- 
tions raises  in  their  mind  the  protest  against  rural  conditions,  and  a  distance 
for  the  limitations  of  rural  life. 

The  country  church  in  spite  of  her  poverty,  and  in  the  face  of  the  growing 
wealth  of  the  community,  has  in  her  possession  many  of  the  resources  which 
the  country  community  needs.     What  are  those  resources? 

First.  The  country  church  has  a  wealth  for  the  community  in  the  old 
members  who  have  moved  away.  Its  hold  upon  them  is  the  most  tenacious 
of  any  institution  with  which  they  have  to  do.  Their  success  and  their  at- 
tainments always  remain  in  sentiment  and  may  be  made  in  fact  the  possession 
of  the  community  which  sent  them  forth.  The  extent  of  this  resource  is 
scarcely  appreciated.  A  reunion  of  the  Plum  Creek  Church  in  Pennsylvania 
brought  to  light  the  fact  that  although  this  church  was  "running  along  with 
Its  tongue  out"  in  raising  a  thousand  dollars  a  year  for  its  minister's  salary, 
the  former  members  of  the  church  had  come  into  possession  of  fifteen 
millions.  The  country  church  in  those  communities  which  have  longest  studied 
this  problem  is  leading  in  the  "Old  Home  Week  movement"— an  annual  re- 
union, with  the  revision  of  the  list  of  old  members,  with  cultivation  of 
Interest  In  those  members  where  they  are,  and  sympathy  with  their  attain- 
ments   and    experiences,    with    solicitation    of    gifts,    and    of    endowment    for 


5 
local  institutions,  with  ample  discussion  of  agriculture  and  other  local  Industries 
and   with   the   promoting   of   the   literary   interest   in   the    taste   of   the   "home 
town"— which  has  brought  to  the  local  community  a  wealth  of  human  interest. 

The  second  resource  which  belongs  to  the  country  community  and  the 
country  church  is  given  in  the  leaders  who  have  arisen  in  the  last  decade. 
Very  few,  indeed,  are  the  books  on  the  country  community  and  on  rural 
life.  Professor  Bailey's  "Cyclopedia  of  American  Agriculture,"  Volume  4, 
and  other  writings  of  Professor  Bailey  of  Cornell;  Wilbur  L.  Anderson's 
"The  Country  Town,"  and  Kenyon  L.  Butteriield's  "Chapters  in  Rural  Prog- 
ress," belong  on  a  shelf  by  themselves. 

But  the  personal  leadership,  and  the  electric  inspiration  of  Professor  L. 
H.  Bailey  of  Cornell,  President  Butterfleld  of  Massachusetts  Agricultural  Col- 
lege at  Amherst,  Rev.  Geo.  Frederick  Wells,  the  specialist  In  church  federa- 
tion in  Burlington,  Vermont,  and  the  two  splendid  men  whose  service  under 
the  United  States  Government  has  been  epoch  making,  Wilson  and  Pinchot, 
promise  a  propaganda  of  country  life.  These  men  are  already  enlisting  vol- 
unteers great  and  small  throughout  the  land.  The  next  feneration  will  see 
a  wealth  of  literature  of  all  sorts  in  exploiting  and  advocating  and  enjoying 
country    life.     There    is    promise    that    the    church    and    the    religious    interest 

The  third  resource  of  the  country  community  and  church  is  the  reaction 
from  the  tide  which  has  set  toward  the  city.  Now  this  drainage  of  the 
country  communities  into  the  city  is  not  all  bad.  It  has  carried  away  many 
of  the  brilliant  and  ambitious.  It  has  also  drawn  away  the  baser  and  worse 
elements  from  the  country.  The  factory,  the  railroad,  and  the  variety  of 
city  industries  have  attracted  the  bolder  and  more  eccentric  spirits  out  of 
the  country  community,  both  bad  and  good,  and  have  sifted  the  population 
In  a  general  way,  leaving  those  who  are  best  adapted  to  the  industry  In 
which  the  particular  countryside  can  be  most  profitably  worked.  I  know 
there  are  limitations  In  the  process,  but  I  believe  the  general  effect  of  the 
sifting  of  population  has  been  an  improving  and  organizing  of  the  country 
people.  Now  the  tide  has  begun  to  set  toward  the  country.  In  Altoona,  the 
Industrial  capital  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad,  2,200  were  discharged  in  1907, 
because  of  the  panic.  Within  a  few  weeks  none  of  them  were  found  in  Al- 
toona. They  had  gone  to  the  farms  where  there  is  always  a  living.  Two 
years  later,  when  they  were  summoned  back  again  by  mail,  they  declined 
to  come  until  better  wages  and  more  favorable  hours  and  conditions  should 
be  promised.  Ten  years  ago  I  went  to  the  country  to  seek  health  in  the 
summer  for  my  household.  This  year,  in  the  spot  which  I  selected  because 
I  could  afford  to  go  there,  there  are  twenty  families  who  spend  the  summer 
together.  They  would  have  gone  to  the  country  somewhere,  but  became  my 
rural  neighbors  simply  because  of  personal  acquaintance.  All  through  the 
East  the  cities  are  contributing  their  children  to  the  country  communities, 
and  this  immigration  into  the  country  will  remain.  As  a  real  estate  man  said, 
"People  come  from  the  city  to  the  country  once,  and  some  of  them  are 
disappointed  and  come  back.  But  they  are  never  contented,  and  the  country 
claims  them  again  as  residents,  and  from  this  second  excursion  to  the  open 
country   they   never  return." 

The  fourth  resource  of  the  country  community  In  this  day  which  the 
church  brings  to  her  Is  the  splendid  democratic  organization  of  Protestant 
denominations.  Our  own  noble  church  with  her  organization  seasoned  by 
400  years  of  self  government  comes  to  the  country  community  with  an 
endowment  of  priceless  value.  Is  not  the  great  need  In  the  country,  the 
need  of  co-operation  and  organization?  Shall  not  the  Presbyterian  minister 
be  the  apostle  of  the  spirit  of  his  own  church,  teaching  the  farmer  what 
It  means  to  us  to  work  together?  Is  our  splendid  organization  to  be  used 
only  for  the  petty  purposes  which  express  our  differences  of  Interpreting  the 
Bible,  or  Is  it  not  to  be  used  Instead  as  It  Is  used  In  Ohio  Synod  and  the 
Presbytery  of  Huntingdon  In  Pennsylvania— to  mention  no  other  case— for 
the  propaganda  of  country  life,  for  the  upbuilding  of  country  communities 
through    the    Presbyterian    church? 


Let  me  be  perfectly  definite  at  this  point.  I  believe  that  the  synods  in 
the  Presbyterian  ohurch,  which  the  city  minister  regards  with  languid 
interest,  are  the  inheritance  of  power  for  the  country  church  and  the  service 
of  the  country  community.  If  the  presbytery  is  often  helpless  to  render 
aid  to  the  country  church  in  her  great  task— because  the  presbytery  may  be 
made  up  wholly  of  country  churches,  but  the  synod  possesses  the  resources 
of  a  whole  State — let  the  synods  realize  that  this  is  their  task.  Let  them  adopt 
rural  Evangelism,  of  which  the  General  Assembly's  Evangelistic  Committee 
has  become  champion.  Let  them  make  that  Evangelism  systematic  and 
constructive.  Use  it  as  a  regimen  of  health  for  the  country  church.  Put 
dynamite  and  jack  screws,  and  new  timber  and  plaster  and  shingles  into 
it.  Put  an  architect  in  charge,  and  let  us  hire  contractors  and  demand 
results  of  them.  And  let  us  always  remember  that  we  have  no  selfish  inter- 
est. Our  creeds  and  standards  require  of  us  no  denominational,  narrow  work, 
but  the  Presbyterian  country  church  is  to  be  an  agency  for  the  revival 
of  the  country  community  as  well  as  thorough  conversion  of  the  country 
resident. 

Fifth  and  greatest  of  all.  The  country  church  brings  to  the  country 
community  her  inheritance  of  the  gratitude  of  the  churches,  for  out  of  her 
maternal  bosom  have  gone  forth  four-fifths  of  the  ministers  who  serve  in 
cities,  and  of  her  are  two-thirds  of  the  leaders  who  are  sustaining  our  great 
denomination.  These  men  do  not  forget.  They  remember  the  shade  of  the 
trees  in  the  village  street,  and  the  ball  ground  where  they  played  as  boys, 
and  the  swimming  pool.  They  have  not  forgotten  the  red  school  house; 
its  deficiencies  as  well  as  its  abounding  life  and  laughter;  its  sub- 
stantial though  irregular  training.  They  need  only  to  oe  told  of  their 
duty,  and  they  will  become  members  again  of  the  community  that  sent 
them  forth.  All  this  wealth  of  sentiment  and  passion  of  remembrance  is 
for  the  country  church  to  transfer  to  the  account  of  the  ("ountry  community 
and  herself.  Only  the  country  church  must  believe  in  herself  and  in  the 
community.  She  must  renew  her  marriage  bonds,  and  she  must  be  loyal  to 
the  community   whose   life   she   shares. 

My  last  general  statement  must  be  a  brief  review  of  the  points  which 
unite  the  country  church  and  the  country  community.  In  our  "One  Day 
Conferences  on  the  County  Church,"  we  are  calling  this  statement  "The 
Standard  of  Country  Life.*'  It  is  a  sketch  of  the  code  of  aspiration  for 
the  country  church;  the  rule  by  which  the  country  church  shall  reconstruct 
her  life. 

First.  The  country  church  has  her  doctrines  of  right  and  wrong  for  the 
community.  You  older  men  will  remember  when  the  temperance  reform  was 
a  mere  signing  of  pledges  by  Individuals.  Today  the  temperance  reform  is 
a  propaganda  as  wide  as  the  Nation,  expressing  itself  through  local  op- 
tion and  law  enforcement.  It  is  a  community  doctrine,  not  a  personal 
abstinence  merely.  The  country  church  is  speaking  to  the  country 
community  in  the  modern  temperance  movement;  for  mind  you,  modern 
temperance  reform  is  the  doctrine  born  of  the  country  church.  The 
whole  agitation  is  manned  and  derived  from  the  conditions  of  rural  life 
awakened  to  the  need  of  a  community  standard.  In  the  modern  temperance 
reform  the  city  with  its  forces  has  been  sterile.  This  agitation  has  used  the 
cities  as  centers  of  transportation  and  occasional  fields  of  fii'ancial  harvesting, 
but  the  men  and  the  resources  and  the  opinion  came  from  the  country. 

Second— In  this  communal  code  which  the  church  is  teaching  the  com- 
munity—is Sabbath  observance,  on  behalf  of  the  workingman.  The  country 
church  is  realizing  that  the  Sabbath  day  is  being  exploited  \y  money-making. 
We  are  all  alarmed  at  the  fact  recently  disclosed  that  four  million  working- 
men  in  America  must  labor  on  the  day  of  rest.  The  church  is  not  the  owner 
of  the  Sabbath,  but  the  trustee.  She  holds  it  for  the  men  who  toil.  To  them 
It  was  given  in  the  Fourth  Commandment  and  in  the  word  of  our  Lord. 
The  Sabbath  has  been  a  difficult  burden  for  the  church,  and  it  has  been  of 
doubtful   value   to   her,    to   use    it   as    a   sole    day   of   worship.     Today   in    the 


1 


7 

Interest  of  the  great  body  of  men  who  toil  the  Sabbath  must  be  retaken, 
through  the  power  of  the  State.and  by  the  creation  of  public  sentiment.  It 
is  the  greatest  effective  shortening  of  the  continuous  strain  of  labor  that 
the  world  has  ever  known.  We  may  aspire  to  an  eight-hour  day,  but  we 
do  well   to  set  great  value  on   the   six-day   week. 

Men  talk  about  "perishable  goods,"  which  must  be  moved  on  the  day 
of  rest.  Nothing  is  more  "perishable"  than  a  shave  or  a  hair-cut,  but  the 
barbers  of  New  York  State  went  to  the  Legislature,  and  demanded  protec- 
tion against  the  toil  in  their  "perishable"  industry  on  the  Sabbath,  and  the 
Governor  of  New  York  has  closed  the  barber  shops  on  Sunday.  Nothing  Is 
more  perishable  than  meat,  but  the  butchers'  workers  in  New  York  went  to 
the  Legislature,  and  demanded  that  the  butchershops  be  closed  on  the  Sab- 
bath, and  they  are  closed.  The  workingmen  of  France  and  Italy  are  demand- 
ing the  day  of  rest,  and  they  are  able,  as  the  churches  are  not,  to  enforce 
this  demand.  In  Rome  a  year  ago  some  ladies  of  my  acquaintance  tried 
to  buy  the  pretty  Roman  scarfs  on  their  last  day  in  the  city,  which  was 
Sunday,  but  every  shop  in  Rome,  except  a  few  where  the  Pope  sells  his 
relics,  were  closed.  Did  the  Pope  close  them?  Did  the  Protestant  churches, 
or  the  tourists?  Oh,  no!  They  were  closed  by  a  law  enforced  by  the  Mayor 
of  Rome,   who  is  a  Socialist  by  the  name  of  Nathan,   and  a   Jew. 

The  third  feature  in  the  communal  good  for  country  church  and  com- 
munity is  the  promoting  of  recreation  as  a  field  of  moral  improvement.  Our 
fathers  in  the  great  days  of  the  Church's  power  were  not  afraid  to  speak 
of  recreations  and  amusements  and  play.  They  were  strong  and  masterful, 
it  is  true,  but  they  were  not  without  sympathy.  The  modern  minister  Is 
afraid  to  deal  with  recreation;  but  the  workingman  is  forced  to  seek 
organized  public  recreation,  and  he  has  discovered  that  Its  influence 
Is  good.  The  letters  I  receive  from  ministers  throughout  the  country  testify 
that  public  recreation  in  the  towns  is  generally  of  an  essential  moral  tone, 
though  often  the  ministers  inconsistently  add  that  their  attitude  is  one  of 
opposition,  or  neutrality,  toward  all  sports.  But  Dr.  Luther  Gulick,  who 
was  trained  In  our  churches  and  colleges,  a  specialist  in  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association,  and  employed  for  years  by  the  New  York  public 
schools,  says,  "There  is  a  higher  moral  training  in  the  reactions  of  play 
than  in  the  experiences  of  labor."  It  becomes  the  country  community  there- 
fore to  promote  true  recreation  for  its  moral  values.  A  doctrine  of  recreation 
and  a  standard  for  the  spontaneous  enjoyments  of  the  young  and  of  the 
working  people  in  the  community  should  be  contributed  by  the  country  church 
to  the  population  which  it  serves. 

Fourth  in  the  communal  good  is  federation.  I  have  ppoken  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  Presbyterian  organization  and  organizing  spirit.  In  the 
preaching  of  the  ministers,  shall  the  Presbyterian  Church  be  afraid  to  make 
herself  the  center  of  a  federation  of  the  churches  of  the  community,  to  con- 
tribute her  broad,  open  spirit,  with  no  prejudicial  doctrine?  Her  inheritance 
Is  a  leaven  for  the  church  life  in  the  town.  She  has  no  reason  to  proselyte. 
She  has  no  exclusively  saving  doctrine,  or  peculiar  secrament— no  monopoly. 
Let  her  be  as  broad  as  her  inheritance,  and  call  the  churches  together  Into 
co-operative  service  to  the  whole  population. 

In  communal  doctrines  the  country  church  should  contribute  the  reunion 
of  old  members  to  the  country  community.  Every  country  church  should  be 
required  by  presbytery  and  synod  to  report  as  to  her  knowledge  of  her 
former  members.  Her  hold  upon  them  Is  the  longest  and  most  tenacious 
of  all  the  Institutions  to  which  they  join  themselves.  Let  the  synod  make 
the  country  church  responsible  for  these  members  on  her  own  behalf  and 
on  their  behalf.  Their  prosperity  will  enrich  the  country  community,  and 
her  interest  will  govern  their  lives  and  sentiments  as  long  as  they  live. 

Third  of  the  bonds  which  unite  the  country  church  and  community  Is  the 
missionary  Inheritance  of  the  church.  The  country  community  Is  narrow 
and  petty.  Let  the  church  Inoculate  the  gossip  of  the  town  with  missionary 
story,   heroic  biography,   world-wide  vision.     The   propaganda   of  foreign   mis- 


sions  and  city  missions  have  peculiar  fascinaton  for  country  people.  My  own 
experence  has  been  that  rural  congregations  will  give  more  willingly  to  home 
and  foreign  missions  than  to  local  church  support.  In  my  first  parish  the 
list  of  supporters  of  a  missionary  physician  in  China,  whom  the  people  had 
never  seen,  was  the  longest  list  in  my  church  records;  longer  than  the 
membership  of  church  or  Sunday  school.  It  was  the  widest  reach  in  which 
the  church  could  include  the  residents  in  that  countryside.  The  church  should 
make  everybody  give  something  to  missionary  enterprises,  and  should  put 
the  printed  matter  of  the  great  boards  of  the  church  in  every  farmer's  and 
every  tenant's  house  in  the  community.  She  should  bring,  moreover,  the 
speaker  and  the  exhibit  from  foreign  lands  to  the  platform  of  the  country 
church,  that  people  who  have  never  seen  any  but  one  landscape  may  ac- 
knowledge the  fascination  of  foreign  harbors  and  distant  continents,  to  which 
the  Gospel  is  being  sent  by  themselves. 

Fourth  of  the  bonds  is  that  everybody  should  give  to  the  support  of  the 
local  church.  I  am  not  going  to  dwell  on  this.  I  have  sai-.l  enough  about  the 
Evangelism  of  the  country  church  in  the  matter  of  giving.  Convert  the  pros- 
perous farmer  into  a  benevolent  man.  No  one  will  do  it  for  him  between 
birth  and  death  but  the  country  church.  If  he  dies  mean  and  narrow,  it 
must  be  her  fault  as  well  as  his  own.  She  is  nearest  to  him  of  all  agencies. 
If  he  will  not  give  to  her  support,  his  case  is  hopeless. 

Last  of  all,  even  at  the  risk  of  repetition,  let  me  say  that  the  Presbyterian 
church  in  the  country  brings  to  the  country  community  her  great  doctrine 
of  organization  and  of  co-operation.  All  through  the  land  farm  communities 
are  seething  with  the  agitation  of  farmers'  unions,  dairymen's  leagues,  fruit 
growers'  associations.  In  this  agitation  let  the  church  not  be  silent!  She 
has  a  message  mature,  and  a  machinery  well  proven  for  the  work,  and  her 
contribution  to  the  working  out  of  the  problem  of  country  life  must,  as  the 
Country  Life  Commission  showed,  be  the  first  factor  in  the  revival  of  country 
life,  which,  than  God!  has  begun. 

I  congratulate  the  Synod  of  New  York  and  the  Presbyterian  church  upon 
the  progressive  and  scientific  spirit  in  which  she  is  leading  ahead.  And  I 
challenge  the  theological  seminaries  to  keep  pace  in  the  training  of  ministers 
With  the  spirit  of  the  church,  and  the  demands  of  the  times. 


The  Country  Community  and  the 
Country  Church. 


W.  H.  JORDAN,  M.  D. 

Director  of  the  New  York  Agricultural  Eperiment  Station, 

GENEVA,  NEW  YORK 

There  are  many  persons  who  are  scarcely  aware  that  the  rural  church 
Is  now  an  insistent  and  perplexing  problem,  and  some  might  even  deny  that 
this  is  so.  It  has  been  taught  that  the  open  country  is  a  fertile  soil  for 
Christianity  and  we  have  been  advised  that  the  city  with  its  haunts 
of  crime  is  the  point  in  the  home  field  at  which  the  church  should  make  its 
most  vigorous  assaults.  The  deliberations  of  church  bodies  in  the  past 
have  presented  but  little  to  disturb  this  point  of  view.  In  our  representa- 
tive gatherings,  even  in  our  home  churches,  the  causes  of  home  and  foreign 
missions  are  urged  with  a  system  and  efficiency  that  aroase  our  admiration 
and  compel  our  support,  but  in  these  efforts  the  special  interest  of  a  field 
that  lies  at  our  very  door,  where  we  need  not  so  much  extension  of  effort 
as  reconstruction  of  method  has  received  comparatively  little  attention.  The 
last  General  Assembly  in  its  instructions  to  a  committee  appointed  to  con- 
sider social  problems  mentions  the  acquisition  and  use  of  wealth,  the  rela- 
tions between  employer  and  employee  and  between  capital  and  labor,  and 
the  unnecessary  existence  of  poverty,  but  it  is  silent  as  to  the  wide-spread 
rural  needs.  In  view  of  this  deliverance  and  other  facts,  it  is  not  unfair 
to  say  that  until  quite  recently,  at  least,  the  formulation  and  public  dis- 
cussion of  this  problem  is  mainly  to  be  credited  to  a  few  students  of  rural 
sociology  rather  than  to  initiative  or  clearness  of  vision  within  the  church 
itself.  But  notwithstanding  the  assertions  that  are  being  made,  let  U3 
ask  the  question,  "Is  there  a  special  country  church  problem,  and  if  so  what 
Is  it?" 

In  considering  this  question  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  if  there  is  any 
material  change  in  the  status  of  rural  churches  some  numerical  evidence 
of  it  should  be  obtainable.  With  this  in  mind  I  set  myself  at  the  somewhat 
laborious  task  of  comparing  conditions  in  1880  and  1909  of  all  the  Presbyterian 
churches  in  the  State  in  places  of  less  than  4,000  Inhabitants  excepting  those 
that  in  1880  were  in  the  presbyteries  of  Long  Island  and  New  York.  The  number 
of  churches  so  studied  was  386,  located  in  the  territory  now  covered  by 
eighteen  presbyteries.  I  also  made  a  similar  study  of  318  churches  found 
outside  of  villages  of  1,000  or  more  inhabitants,  believing  that  by  eliminating 
the  larger  places  I  could  come  nearer  to  discovering  conditions  as  they 
exist  in  the  remoter  country  districts.  The  data  that  I  have  elaborated 
relate  mainly  to  membership  and  pastoral   care. 

The  facts  as  to  membership  are  as  follows:  In  1880,  386  village  and  town- 
ship churches  had  a  membership  of  37,208,  and  in  1909,  38,224,  a  gain  in  29 
years  of  1,016  members.  The  318  township  churches  had  In  1880  a  membership 
ot  25,310  and  in  1909  It  Is  23,171  or  a  loss  of  2,139  members.  Of  the  village 
and  township  churches  181  Increased  in  membership  and  205  lost,  while  of  the 
township  churches  129  gained  and  191  lost.  In  twelve  of  the  eighteen  presby- 
teries the  strictly  rural  churches  did  not  as  a  whole  hold  their  own,  some 
of    the    most    prosperous    agricultural    sections    of    the    State    showing    a    loss. 


10 

Unless  other  denominations  have  been  more  successful  than  this  one  has, 
the  strictly  rural  churches  of  New  York  are  becoming  numerically  weakened. 

The  figures  showing  pastoral  relations  are  even  more  significant.  In 
1880  somewhait  more  than  one-third,  or  exactly  37  per  cent  of  the  village  and 
township  churches  were  supplied  with  pastors,  while  189  or  49.5  per  cent  are 
marked  as  having  stated  supplies,  and  51  or  13.5  per  cent  were  vacant.  The 
318  township  churches  were  in  a  worse  plight,  as  only  .101  or  31.8  per  cent 
had  pastors,  165  or  51.9  per  cent  were  getting  along  with  stated  supplies 
and  52  or  16.3  per  cent  were  shepherdless.  The  records  for  1909  show  that 
of  the  318  township  churches  under  consideration,  51  or  about  one-sixth  had 
disappeared  from  the  rolls  and  of  the  remaining  267,  52  were  vacant,  the 
vacant  and  extinct  township  churches  together  amounting  to  nearly  one- 
third  of  those  having  an  official  existence  in  1880.  It  is  gratifying  to  note, 
however,  that  in  1909  the  number  of  pastors  in  the  churches  in  existence 
in  1880  had  somewhat  increased,  there  being  nine  more  in  the  village  churches 
and  eleven  more  in  churches  outside  of  villages  of  not  less  than  1,000  in- 
habitants. 

Unless  my  judgment  is  at  fault  these  data  should  sharply  arrest  our 
attention.  To  be  sure,  it  may  be  claimed  with  truth  that  the  drop  in 
membership  of  churches  in  the  open  country  is  not  out  of  proportion  to  the 
decrease  in  rural  population,  and  that  decrease  alone  does  not  indicate  a 
country  church  problem.  Granting  this,  we  may  still  point  a  solicitous 
finger  to  51  dead  churches  and  52  with  no  recorded  pastoral  care  of  any  kind. 

Another  fact  of  great  import  is  that  in  1880  more  than  one-half  of  the 
churches  in  places  that  in  1909  had  not  become  villages  of  some  size  were 
without  a  settled  pastor.  It  will  be  generally  conceded.  I  am  sure,  that 
with  stated  supplies,  especially  where,  as  is  often  the  case,  the  same  min- 
ister preaches  at  two  or  more  places,  the  most  efficient  leadership  and 
pastoral  care  are  generally  not  possible.  Sermons  alone  are  utterly  insufficient 
to  keep  the  church  membership  energized.  Community  leadership  and  an 
intimate  contact  with  the  people  are  now  among  the  first  essentials  in  the 
work  of  the  Christian  minister,  conditions  that,  in  a  large  number  of 
cases    are    not    met    by    the    system    of    stated    supplies. 

But  here,  as  in  all  discussions  concerning  the  moral  or  religious  status 
of  a  community,  mere  statistics  do  not  adequately  reveal  the  situation.  The 
diminished  influence  of  the  country  church  is  a  much  more  serious  matter 
than  its  diminished  numbers.  No  one  familiar  with  present  rural  life  con- 
ditions can  avoid  the  conclusion  that  for  the  men  and  women  in  the  farm 
homes  the  church  has  to  a  serious  extent  ceased  to  be  the  center  of  social 
activity  and  the  guide  to  determinative  thinking.  In  many  localities  no 
religious  organization  of  arty  kind  holds  a  place  of  real  influence  in  the  life 
and  thought  of  the  people.  One  writer  who  has  had  unusual  opportunity 
for  a  study  of  this  problem,  asserts  that  "concerned  in  too  many  cases 
with  technical  religion,  formal  piety  and  small  empty  social  duties,  the 
country  church  does  not  appeal  strongly  to  men  with  rich  red  blood  in 
their  veins,"  a  condition,  as  I  shall  try  to  show  you  that  will  not  be  remedied, 
however  faithful  and  devoted  is  the  service  rendered  by  the  country  pastor 
until  we  have  a  somewhat  radical  redirection  of  rural  church  activities. 
When  I  view  the  situation  as  it  has  existed,  indeed,  as  it  still  exists,  I  am 
not  greatly  surprised  that  we  have  a  country  church  problem,  and  I  am  led 
to  ask  whether  this  denomination,  or  any  other,  has  wisely  distributed  its 
energies.  Has  not  the  distant  field,  whether  in  the  Far  "West  or  across  the 
seas,  been  magnified  out  of  proportion  to  its  relative  Importance?  Have 
you  not  to  a  greater  degree  applied  the  results  of  intelligent  study  and 
organization  to  other  problems,  especially  to  foreign  mission  work  than 
to  the  saving  of  the  religious  life  of  the  outlying  districts  of  the  State 
of  New  York?  If  the  life  blood  of  the  churches  in  these  older  States  is 
to  flow  into  new  regions  and  other  climes,  its  current  must  be  moved  by  an 
Impulse  from  healthy  and  vigorous  organisms.  If  we  are  to  save  the 
world   we   must   first   save   ourselves. 


— 1 


11 

As  a  rule  it  is  much  easier  for  a  physician  to  declare  that  a  man  is  sick 
than  it  is  to  cure  him.  So  it  is  with  the  ills  of  the  community  or  of  any 
organization,  the  difficulty  lies  in  finding  remedies.  This  brings  us  to  the 
question,  what  shall  we  do  to  strengthen  the  social  and  religious  life  of  the 
open  country?  In  order  to  answer  this  question  intelligently,  and  with  what 
definiteness  we  may,  it  is  necessary  to  bring  to  mind  some  of  the  influences 
that  have  profoundly  modified  rural  conditions  during  the  past  fifty  years, 
as  well  as  some  of  the  modern  factors  that  are  designed  to  aid  those  whose 
feet  are  planted  on  the  soil. 

As  late  as  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  rural  life  conditions 
were  greatly  different  from  what  they  are  now.  No  more  than  sixty  years 
ago,  the  country  home  and  the  country  village  of  the  Eastern  States  included 
within  themselves  productive  and  manufacturing  industries  in  such  com- 
pleteness as  to  nearly  satisfy  the  necessities  of  the  simpler  life  of  that 
time.  The  farm  home  had  its  spinning  wheel  and  loom,  the  farm  produced 
practically  all  the  family  ate  and  to  a  great  extent  what  it  wore.  In  the 
village  was  found  the  cobbler,  the  blacksmith,  the  harness  maker,  the  tin 
knocker  and  the  grist  mill.  Outside  of  a  limited  number  of  commodities, 
barter  was  largely  between  neighbors  and  with  the  nearby  general  mer- 
chandise store.  The  isolation  of  these  small  but  widely  distributed  centers 
of  population  was  favorable  to  the  maintenance  of  home  enterprises  and 
of  such  social  activities  as  were  adapted  to  country  life,  and  the  attention 
of  the  people  was  concentrated  upon  home  institutions  into  which  flowed 
the   industrial   and   social   energies   of   the   surrounding   community. 

Two  factors  have  wrought  a  great  change.  Just  previous  to  the  Civil 
War,  and  especially  during  several  decades  following  the  war.  there  occur- 
red the  most  rapid  and  extensive  opening  up  of  new  western  lands  for  agri- 
cultural purposes  that  civilization  has  ever  witnessed.  Sixty  years  ago  one- 
third  of  all  our  farms  was  in  nine  Eastern  States  and  in  a  half  century  the 
center  of  our  population  and  of  our  improved  land  moved  from  West  Vir- 
ginia to  the  Middle  West.  The  building  during  that  time  of  thousands  of 
miles  of  railroad  made  possible  this  phenomenal  occupancy  of  the  fertile 
prairies  both  by  carrying  the  settlers  to  new  regions  and  by  transporting 
their  vast  output  of  wheat,  corn  and  cattle  to  eastern  markets.  Accompany- 
ing this  transformation  of  our  agriculture,  and.  indeed,  a.s  an  essential  part 
of  it,  came  the  development  of  labor  saving  machinery  which  either  de- 
stroyed or  greatly  minimized  the  industrial  activities  of  the  farm  home 
and  small  village,  and  centralized  manufacturing  in  the  large  places.  The 
combined  influence  of  the  large  Xvestern  output  of  staple  agricultural  pro- 
ducts and  of  the  rise  of  great  manufacturing  centers  not  only  caused  a  severe 
depression  in  eastern  agriculture  but  to  an  extent  depopulated  the  open 
country.  In  1909  the  State  of  New  York  had  730,000  less  people  in  places 
under  4,000  inhabitants  than  was  the  case  in  1880.  These  changes  reacted 
sharply  upon  the  rural  spirit  and  especially  upon  country  institutions,  in- 
cluding the  school  and  the  church.  Rural  life  has  become  more  or  less 
drained  of  its  social  energy,  in  many  places  its  characterictic  recreations 
and  social  dviersions  have  disappeared  and  the  farm,  both  commercially  and 
in  matters  of  human  interest  has  its  attention  fixed  more  largely  out  beyond 
its  immediate  environment.  We  have  been  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
necessity   of   a   readjustment   of   rural   affairs,    both    economically   and    socially. 

On  the  physicial  side  of  agriculture  remedial  agencies  are  at  work  and 
have  been  for  some  time.  In  1862  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  initiated 
the  agricultural  colleges  which,  organized  in  every  State  and  now  attended 
by  thousands  of  students,  within  the  past  two  decades  have  come  to  exercise 
an  important  infiuence  in  agricultural  affairs.  In  1888  federal  aid  was  granted 
to  agricultural  experiment  stations  which  now  fill  a  large  place  in  the  far- 
to  agricultural  experiment  stations  which  now  fill  a  large  place  in  the  farmers' 
thought  and  practice.  Farmers'  institutes  and  extension  reading  courses  are 
subsidiary  efforts  maintained  by  these  two  classes  of  institutions,  to  which 
thousands  of  farmers  and  farmers'  wives  are  giving  attention.  Through 
agencies  of  this  kind  there  has  been  a  marked  advance  in  the  knowledge  and 


12 

art  of  agriculture.  Besides,  the  economic  situation  as  affecting  the  agri- 
culture of  the  older  States  has  greatly  Improved  so  that  now  the  material 
Interests  of  the  eastern  farmer  are  on  the  up  grade.  I  am  not  certain  that 
such  is  the  case  with  his  social  and  religious  interests.  While  material 
prosperity  is  certainly  favorable  to  the  betterment  of  human  conditions, 
the    way    in    which    added    wealth    is    used    depends    upon    the    ideals    of    Its 


The  Country  Life  Commission  appointed  by  President  Roosevelt  found 
that  in  certain  sections  of  a  rich  Middle-West  State  agricultural  profits  were 
being  used  to  acquire  more  land  or  more  cattle  rather  than  to  improve  the 
quality  of  human  living.  Larger  profits  for  the  farmer  are  desirable,  but 
they  will  not  serve  as  an  antidote  to  social  and  moral  ills.  The  farmer's 
mind  and  heart  must  have  better  cultivation  as  well  as  his  acres  if  we 
are  to  hold  rural  communities  to  high  Ideals  of  life.  How  shall  the  church 
aid  in  accomplishing   this  great   end? 

It  seems  to  be  generally  agreed  among  those  who  direct  the  activities 
of  the  Presbyterian  church,  if  we  may  judge  by  practice,  that  the  old-time 
evangelistic  efforts  no  longer  appeal  strongly  to  our  long  established  country 
communities.  We  cannot  hope,  eithelr,  that  the  intermittent  labors  of 
missionaries  will  be  especially  effective  in  rejuvenating  rural  churches.  I 
have  already  expressed  the  opinion  that  we  need  not  so  much  extension  of 
effort  (although  that  is  needed,  as  reconstruction  of  method  and  I  will 
now  amplify  that  statement  by  asserting  that  the  work  of  organized  Chris- 
tianity among  the  rural  people  must  be  re-directed  if  It  is  to  meet  existing 
conditions.  In  the  suggestion  which  I  shall  make  In  this  connection  I  trust 
I  may  be  pardoned  If  I  seem  presumptuous.  The  views  I  shall  express  are 
convictions  that  have  come  to  me  through  a  life-long  experience  in  the 
service  of  the  people  on  the  land,  and  if  I  speak  bolaly,  my  interest  in  my 
constituency  will  be  my  excuse. 

First  of  all,  then,  the  country  church  should  be  a  social  service  church, 
and'  Institutional,  so  far  as  circumstances  will  permit.  The  greatest  need  of 
the  open  country  today  is  a  better  organized  and  more  attractive  social  life. 
I  know  from  conversations  with  young  men,  that  the  lack  of  social  ad- 
vantages Is  their  chief  objection  to  agriculture  as  a  vocation.  The  day  of 
reasonable  profits  for  the  Intelligent  farmer  is  here,  and  for  many  the  prob- 
lem Is  not  financial  but  social.  A  few  years  ago  two  high-type  young  men, 
graduates  of  a  university,  came  to  me  for  advice.  One  of  theim  said  this 
to  me:  "I  can  have  a  farm  of  several  hundred  acres  of  good  land  with 
good  buildings.  It  is  not  closely  adjacent  to  a  city  or  large  village.  Can 
I  settle  there  and  live  the  life  an  educated  man  ought  to  live?  Should  I 
take  a  wife  into  such  an  environment?"  These  are  the  questions  hun- 
dreds of  young  men  are  asking.  If  our  best  type  of  young  men  and  women 
are  to  be  held  on  the  land  as  its  owners  and  managers,  we  must  develop 
high  type  country  life  institutions  and  attractive  human  relations,  and  if 
the  rural  church  is  to  enter  Into  its  own.  It  must  take  a  prominent  part  In 
accomplishing  these  results. 

In  order  that  the  country  church  shall  be  the  largest  possible  social  fac- 
tor, it  must  federate  itself  with  all  other  agencies  whose  purpose  Is  the 
betterment  of  rural  life.  The  school,  the  grange,  the  farmers'  Institute  and 
the  community  library  should  feel  Its  influence.  In  these  statements  it  is 
not  held  that  the  mission  of  the  church  is  to  Institutions,  either  social 
or  Industrial.  The  message  of  the  church  Is  not  to  things  but  to  human 
lives.  So  long  as  the  pulpit  is  a  power  it  will  be  because  of  its  application  of 
Bible  truths  to  the  Individual  life,  but  Christian  organization  can  use  many 
other  agencies  as  avenues  to  the  attention  and  sympathy  and  understanding 
of  men.  Should  there  not  also  be  a  federation  of  effort  on  the  part  of  coun- 
try churches  of  all  denominations  that  are  located  within  hailing  distance? 
It  Is  sometimes  urged  that  denominational  rivalry  is  a  needed  stimulus 
to  religious  activity  but  from  my  point  of  view  there  Is  no  more  pitiable 
the  same  neighborhood  professing  to  serve  the  same  Master  and  yet  because 


13 

of  denominational  jealousies  failing  to  unite  In  a  common  effort  for  the 
welfare  of  the  community  in  which  they  are  located.  It  is  not  asked  that 
these  churches  merge  their  creeds  or  denominational  polity,  although  bar- 
rJeit  to  such  union  are  artificial  and  unnecessary,  but  they  can  at  least 
mtrge  their  love  to  God  and  man  in  a  united  Christian  service.  There 
should  be  no  smallness  among  the  followers  of  the  Great  Servan*-  of 
humanity. 

Again  the  country  pulpit,  no  less  than  the  city  pulpit,  in  its  terminology 
and  in  its  expression  of  religious  truth  should  be  adjusted  to  the  spirit 
and  conditions  of  modern  thought.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the 
rural  people  are  satisfied  with  a  traditional  faith.  It  is  also  a  mistake 
to  underrate  the  intellectual  status  of  country  life,  thought  and  its  appre- 
ciation of  current  issues  and  modern  formulae.  For  fifty  years  their  voca- 
tional thought  has  been  directed  toward  scientific  methods,  the  methods 
that  we  may  call  rational  as  distinguished  from  traditional  They  are  being 
taught  that  in  material  things  uniform  and  fixed  laws  operate  and  that 
behind  every  effect  lies  a  cause.  During  six  days  of  the  week  in  the  pursu- 
ance of  their  calling,  they  expect  authority  to  justify  Itself  on  a  rational 
basis  and  when  Sunday  comes  many  of  them  are  not  inclined  to  forsake 
their  every  day  habit  of  mind,   and  this  should  not  be  asked  of  them. 

I  wish  to  go  farther  and  urge  that  the  country  pulpit  should  be  readjusted 
to  its  environment,  an  environment  whose  thought  and  interests  have  a 
range  and  character  of  their  own.  Do  you  doubt  the  necessity  of  such  re- 
adjustment? In  the  earlier  days  when  the  foundations  of  a  new  nation 
were  being  laid  and  questions  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  were  at  the 
front  and  when  ecclesiastical  authority  occupied  a  larger  place  than  it 
does  now,  the  pulpit  stood  in  an  intimate  relation  to  issues  in  which  the 
people  had  a  vital  interest,  and  its  utterances  were  regarded  as  ex- 
cathedral.  The  situation  has  changed  with  almost  startling  rapidity.  Now 
new  economic  and  social  forces  re-act  upon  religious  work  no  less  in  the 
open  country  than  anywhere  else,  and  everywhere  there  is  a  changed  attitude 
toward  the  pulpit.  That  in  special  instances  the  country  pulpit  has  an  ade- 
quate understanding  of  rural  life  needs,  and  is  adapting  itself  to  the  com- 
munity it  serves,  I  do  not  doubt,  but  broadly  speaking  its  efforts  appear 
to  need  redirection.  But  the  pulpit  is  the  preacher,  who  out  of  the  pulpit 
Is  the  pastor,  and  so  after  all  the  central  fact  in  this  whole  question  of  adjust- 
ment of  country  churches  to  their  peculiar  work  is  the  preparation  of  the 
men  who  are  to   be  religious   teachers  and  leaders. 

Sometime  ago  I  remarked  to  the  beloved  President  of  the  Seminary  at 
Auburn  that  his  students  who  are  looking  forward  to  country  pastorates 
should  start  their  preparation  by  a  course  in  agriculture  at  the  New  York 
College  of  Agriculture.  I  meant  by  this  that  we  have  now  reached  a 
time  when  the  future  country  pastor  should  be  given  a  special  training. 
Possibly  it  is  not  becoming  in  a  layman  to  express  such  an  opinion,  but 
Just  as  I  hold  that  the  public  school  is  failing  to  do  its  share  in  equipping 
farmers'  sons  and  daughters  for  active  life,  so  I  am  convinced  that  the 
present  curricula  of  theological  seminaries  inadequately  train  young  men  for 
leaders  in  the  religious  life  of  rura'  communities.  What  do  these  young 
men  need  to  know?  A  great  deal  that  cannot  be  acquired  through  a  knowl- 
edge of  Hebrew  or  Greek  and  which  is  decidedly  foreign  to  the  subject 
of  church  history,  dogmatic  theology,  eschatology  or  church  polity.  These 
young  men  need  to  know  something  of  the  farmers'  physical  environment, 
of  the  lessons  of  the  field  and  wood,  of  the  economic  and  social  forces 
that  press  in  upon  the  farm  home,  of  the  educational  agencies  that  ai-e 
designed  to  aid  agriculture  and  of  the  spirit  and  purpose  of  country  Insti- 
tutions. These  things  should  be  understood,  not  that  the  progressive  agri- 
culture may  be  taught  from  the  pulpit,  but  that  the  country  pastor  may 
become  a  leader  among  his  people  and  may  secure  a  sympathetic  touch 
with  their  daily  lives.  The  pastor  who  can  teach  a  lesson  from  a  growing 
plant    and    can    speak    to    the    farmer    in    the    language    of    the    field    possesses 


14 

a  vastly  more  efficient  means  of  gaining  the  interest  and  confidence  of  his 
parishioners  than  comes  from  the  ability  to  preach  sermons  freighted  with 
academic  lore.  I  have  a  dear  friend,  a  notably  successful  pastor  of  a 
New  England  church,  who  in  times  past  has  found  profit  and  pleasure 
in  keeping  a  flock  of  hens.  Some  of  his  hens  becoming  ill  he  called  in  a 
Scotch  neighbor  for  advice.  The  conference  may  not  have  cured  the  hens, 
but  the  next  Sunday  the  Scotchman  was  for  the  first  time  an  attendant  on 
the  services  at  my  friend's  church,  a  practice  which  he  continued.  A  mutual 
appreciation  of  any  subject  serves  as  a  bond  of  interest  and  sympathy 
between  men.  Some  yeiars  ago  the  pastor  of  a  church  in  a  Maine  village 
where  I  was  spending  my  summer  vacation  said  to  me,  "I  wish  there 
were  more  subjects  about  which  I  could  converse  with  my  people."  This 
man  was  large  hearted,  able  and  scholarly,  but  he  did  not  understand 
his  environment,  and  he  finally  found  his  right  place  in  an  important  city 
church.  If  now,  there  is  any  virtue  in  what  has  been  said,  if  effective  pastoral 
service  in  the  open  country  demands  special  preparation,  then  the  problem 
of  the  country  church  comes  ultimately  to  the  doors  of  the  church  sem- 
inaries. The  time  has  come,  if  I  may  be  so  bold  as  to  express  the  opinion, 
when  our  seminary  teachers  should  seriously  consider  a  radical  reconstruc- 
tion of  their  courses  of  study.  It  is  fair  to  ask  them  whether  some  time 
could  not  be  spared  from  the  traditional  subjects  that  for  many  years  have 
held  a  place  in  the  curriculum,  in  order  that  existing  religious  problems 
in  their  relations  to  social  and  economic  conditions  may  be  more  fully 
considered,  whether  the  student  could  not  well  be  given  less  of  the  past 
and  more  of  the  present,  whether  the  energy  devoted  to  preparation  for 
theological  polemics  could  not  with  advantage  be  transferred  in  part  to 
a  consideration  of  social  strategy,  whether  some  of  the  philosophies  should 
not  be  allowed  to  rest  in  peace  and  the  activities  be  more  fully  given  the 
field.  No  one  should  decry  the  value  and  utility  of  learning  in  any  field  of 
thought  and  activity,  but  it  is  a  far  cry  from  Greek  exegesis  and  the 
ancient  philosophies  and  religions  to  the  issues  that  center  around  a  country 
church  in  the  twentieth  century.  We  are  told,  to  be  sure,  that  the  clergy 
should  be  equipped  to  defend  the  faith,  but  the  most  effective  defense 
of  the  faith  is  not  learned  discussions  to  which  this  busy  world  pays  little 
attention,  but  concrete  examples  of  the  moral  upbuilding  of  individual 
and  community  life.  During  the  past  twenty-five  years  the  American  colleges 
and  universities  have  been  obliged  to  radically  reconstruct  their  courses 
of  study  in  order  to  offer  the  educational  facilities  that  meet  present  day 
demands.  Have  the  theological  seminaries  been  equally  responsive  to  new 
conditions?  These  queries  are  not  intended  as  reflections  on  the  scholarship 
and  exalted  service  with  which  our  teachers  are  honoring  the  church,  but 
could  not  the  academic  side  of  theological  training  wisely  be  supplemented 
by  non-resident  lecturers,  who,  fresh  from  Industrial  and  social  warfare 
could  develop  in  the  minds  of  the  young  men  a  practical  conception  of  the 
conditions  they  must  meet  in  the  work  before  them?  I  leave  these  questions 
with  you.  Let  us  hope  that  they  will  be  wisely  answered.  Now  is  an 
opportune  time  in  which  to  consider  them.  A  new  phase  of  development 
appears  to  be  just  ahead  of  the  agriculture  of  the  East.  The  free  home- 
stead lands  of  the  West  are  all  occupied,  and  "an  undertow  seems  to  be 
setting  back"  upon  the  older  States.  This  means  a  more  intensive  occupancy 
of  the  tillable  acres  of  New  York  and  larger  possibilities  for  rural  life  both 
industrially  and  socially.  Organized  Ohristianity  should  recognize  the  op- 
portunity and  prepare  to  meet  it.  Is  it  not  possible  to  fire  the  Imagination 
of  young  men  with  a  vision  of  what  may  be  accomplished  not  alone  at 
distant  points,  but  within  our  own  borders?  Nothing  's  more  important 
to  our  national  welfare  than  that  the  agricultural  people  shall  for  all  time 
remain  intelligent,  self-directive  and  capable  of  contributing  to  our  moral 
and  religious  progress.  To  this  end  the  church  should  spare  no  pains  to 
nourish  in  the  farm  homes  an  abiding  loyalty  to  the  highest  Christian  ideals 
of  life  and  service. 


Shall  We  Have  a  New  Catechism? 


REV.  J.  V.  MOLDENHAWER. 
ALBANY.  NEW  YORK 

I  undertake  the  discussion  of  this  question  only  with  the  clear  under- 
standing that  it  is  but  a  part  of  the  broader  question,  "Shall  We  Revise  Our 
System  of  Religious  Education?"  If  the  larger  enterprise  is  to  be  left  in  its 
present  amorphous  condition  I  suppose  that  It  does  not  matter  greatly  what 
we  do  about  the  Catechism— or  whether  we  do  anything. 

Last  spring  it  was  the  duty  of  the  writer  of  this  paper  to  prepare  for 
Albany  Presbytery  the  Annual  Narrative  of  Christian  Life  and  Work.  Among 
other  matters  of  various  degrees  of  interest,  one  item  seemed  to  be  especially 
significant.  In  answer  to  the  question,  "Is  the  Shorter  Catechism  taught  in 
your  Sunday-school?"  a  large  majority  of  the  churches  replied  in  the  nega- 
tive. After  the  replies  had  been  analyzed  on  the  basis  of  the  numerical 
strength  of  the  schools  concerned  it  appeared  that  approximately  three- 
fourths  of  the  scholars  of  the  presbytery  weer  going  without  catechetical 
instruction.  Inasmuch  as  we  hear  from  Siam  that  "there  is  little  teaching 
of  the  Catechism,"  and  from  Tennessee  that  "there  is  lack  of  catechetical 
instruction,"  we  may  not  unreasonably  suppose  that  the  use  of  the  Westmin- 
ster Shorter  Catechism  is  declining  throughout  the  Churoh.  Before  seeking 
an  answer  to  the  specific  question  whether  we  care  for  any  catechism 
nowadays,  it  will  be  worth  while  to  inquire  into  the  causes  that  underlie 
the    present    evident    neglect. 

It  will  probably  be  generally  admitted  that  the  Church  of  today  is  ex- 
periencing the  discomforts  attending  the  passing  away  of  authority.  The 
principle  of  personal  liberty  has  been  carried  to  great  lengths  in  our  secular 
life;  the  signs  are  that  the  modern  man,  at  least  in  America,  is  disposed  to 
go  quite  as  far  in  matters  of  religion.  In  fact,  the  ultra-democratic  point 
of  vie<w  already  characterizes  the  attitude  of  many  church  members.  They 
believe  what  they  please  and  pass  what  they  do  not  like;  they  go  to  church 
or  not  as  suits  their  whim.  Whatever  variation  of  opinion  there  may  be 
as  to  proper  remedies,  most  of  us  will  accept  this  diagnosis.  Are  we  not 
right  In  going  further  and  saying  that  this  Is  our  problem  par  excellence — 
the  restoration  of  authority  to  the  Church?  Not  external  authority— she 
cares  not  nor  has  cared  for  that  since  the  day  she  demitted  her  right  to  call 
upon  the  secular  arm  to  enforce  her  decrees.  But  a  somewhat  by  virtue  of 
which  she  will  more  tenaciously  hold  her  own  people  and  so  impress  the 
world  with  her  power  to  control  men's  lives,  this  the  church  must  have 
or  perish.     The   church   that   does   not   exercise   mastery   is   a   dead   Institution. 

We  are  at  this  point  face  to  face  with  the  problem  of  method.  How  are 
we  to  go  about  the  re-establishment  of  churchly  authority?  There  are  two 
methods,  widely  different  from  each  other.  The  characteristic  of  the  one  Is 
Its  insistence  upon  immediate  results;  its  object  is  to  compass  the  conversion 
of  grown  men  and  women  to  the  service  of  Christ  in  the  Church;  its  out- 
standing phenomenon  is  the  widespread  evangelistic  movement  of  today. 
The  other  method  is  bound,  perforce,  to  wait  longer  for  the  fruits  of  its 
toil;  its  object  is  the  proper  Christian  training  of  children,  to  the  end  that 
they  may  grow  up  to  be  loyal  followers  of  the  Lord  Jesus  There  will  prob- 
ably always  be  occasion  for  the   employment   of  both   methods   of  work.     But 


16 
It  Is  my  profound  conviction  that  it  is  a  mistalce  of  tragic  proportions  to 
suppose  tliat  the  enlarged  scope,  the  ingenuity  and  the  resourcefulness  of 
evangelistic  campaigns  are  capable  of  meeting  the  present  need.  We  have 
grossly  failed  to  adapt  our  systems  of  religious  education  to  the  needs  of 
the  changing  times,  and  we  are  paying  our  proper  and  disgraceful  penalty 
In  the  apparent  futility  of  much  of  our  present  Sunday-school  work.  Here 
Is  the  seat  of  the  disease  and  here  the  cure  must  begin. 

Now  emerges  the  question,  "Of  what  use,  if  any,  is  a  catechism  in  the 
religious  instruction  of  children?"  The  obvious  answer  historically  is,  that 
a  catechism  is  to  be  used  in  the  training  of  catechumens.  And  this  obvious 
answer  I  believe  to  be  precisely  the  correct  answer.  One  may  doubt  whether 
the  most  excellent  catechism  imaginable  could  survive  the  haphazard  mode 
of  use  to  which  the  Westminster  Catechism  has,  in  some  quarters,  long 
been  subjected.  There  comes  vividly  to  my  mind  the  effort  of  sheer  memory 
by  which  we  youngsters  in  Southern  Sunday  Schools  seized  the  big  phrases 
of  those  amazing  answers,  at  the  rate  of  one  question  for  each  Sunday. 
So  much  memorizing  to  be  done  each  week,  that  was  all  it  meant.  There 
stood  those  Imposing  words,  massive  to  the  vision,  unexplained  If  not  inex- 
plicable, and  leading  no-whither.  Now  I  conceive  a  catechism  to  be  made 
for  other  service  than  that. 

The  principal  if  not  the  only  proper  use  for  a  catechism  Is  as  a  basis 
for  teaching  the  fundamentals  of  the  Christian  Religion  to  groups  of  children 
old  enough  to  be  looking  forward  seriously  to  uniting  with  the  Church.  A 
good  catechism  intelligently  used  ought  to  be  of  great  service  In  these 
circumstances— preparatory  to  confirmation,  to  borrow  a  phrase  from  the 
older  churches.  The  function  of  a  catechism  is  to  set  the  mind  In  favor 
of  certain  modes  of  thinking  and  doing.  Now  both  in  point  of  fairness  to 
the  child,  and  for  real  efficacy,  it  Is  necessary  that  such  a  catechism  concern 
Itself  with  the  most  essential  and  practical  matters  with  which  the  Christian 
Hehgion  has  to  do.  When  we  undertake  to  nourish  a  bias  it  is  well  that  we 
regard  closely  what  we  are  about.  We  must  see  to  It  that  It  Is  a  proper 
bias,  as  proper  as  the  bias  In  favor  of  truth  against  lies,  toward  courage 
against  cowardice,  toward  purity  against  all  uncleanness  With  just  this 
sort  of  service  in  view,  however,  I  believe  the  present  neglect  of  the 
Shorter  Catechism  to  be  justified  by  the  obvious  shortcomings  of  the  docu- 
ment Itself. 

When  I  say  "shortcomings,"  I  use  the  word  with  discretion,  because 
It  Is  just  the  Inadequacy  of  the  catechism  with  which  we  are  so  generally 
finding  fault. 

Let  me  preface  what  I  am  about  to  say  In  reference  to  our  catechism 
with  a  few  earnest  words  as  to  my  own  state  of  mind.  I  am  not  In  a  con- 
troversial mood;  I  have  no  controversy  with  my  brethren  in  Christ  that 
Is  important  enough  to  make  me  forget  my  serious  quarrel  with  all  paganism. 
This  occasion  is  not  for  me  a  mere  theological  field-day.  What  I  shall 
say,  whether  valuable  or  otherwise,  is  Intended  as  a  serious  contribution 
to  the  discussion  of  an  Important  practical  question,  namely,  the  fitness,  In 
content  and  form,  of  the  Shorter  Catechism  for  our  present  purposes  of 
Christian    Instruction. 

Let  us  consider  the  matter  first,  and  afterward  the  manner  of  its 
presentation.  We  are  restricted  by  time  to  the  consideration  of  a  few  Im- 
portant questions  which  will,  I  believe,  be  admitted  by  you  all  to  be  char- 
acteristic and  fundamental.  The  answer  to  Question  7  (What  are  the 
decrees  of  God?)  is  a  strong  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  Predestination. 
It  is  Calvinism  of  the  supralapsarian  type.  The  fact  stares  us  In  the 
face  that  at  least  ninety  per  cent  of  the  preachers  and  teachers  In  our 
church  mingle  with  their  Calvinistic  determinism  a  strong  dash  of  Ar- 
minian  conditionalism.  What  decent  excuse  can  we  give  for  offering  as 
milk  for  babes  that  which  Is  a  very  hard  saying  even  for  theologic  athletes? 
There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  their  understanding  of  the  character  of 
God  will  be  one  whit  the  better  by  the  process.     The  answer  to   Question  9 


17 
gives  six  days  as  the  length  of  time  occupied  In  the  work  of  Creation.  Apart 
from  the  fact  that  no  one  believes  that  statement  to  be  accurate,  the 
question  very  properly  arises  as  to  what  possible  religious  use  it  could 
have  even  if  It  were  true.  In  what  way  can  it  help  children  understand 
the  nature  of  the  Christian  Religion,  to  set  any  definite  term  to  the  dura- 
tion of  God's  creative  activity?  Questions  10  to  19  are  concerned  with  the 
doctrines  of  the  Fall  and  Original  Sin,  both  of  which  doctrines  have  fallen 
into  almost  universal  desuetude.  The  belief  in  the  evolutionary  process 
as  God's  method  of  dealing  with  the  world  has  taken  such  a  firm  hold  on 
men's  minds  that  the  older  conception  has  almost  disappeared  from  view. 
It  is  also  evident  by  this  time  that  the  change  has  not  damaged  in  the  slightest 
the  Christian  conception  of  the  character  of  God.  Is  it  well  to  give  the 
space  of  ten  questions  and  answers  to  that  which  is  but  a  record  of  what 
all  men  once  thought,  but  which  very  few  men  think  now? 

Question  20  draws  out  a  singularly  unfortunate  statement  of  God's  pur- 
pose of  Salvation  in  terms  of  the  doctrine  of  Election.  The  objection 
stated  in  the  case  of  Question  7  obtains  even  more  decidedly  here.  Con- 
cerning the  form  of  the  answer  more  will  be  said  later.  Questions  21  to  28 
describe  the  redemptive  work  of  Christ  according  to  the  Anselmic  form 
of  the  doctrine  of  Atonement,  with  its  characteristic  over-emphasis  upon 
the  justice  and  the  wrath  of  God,  and  upon  the  substitutionary  rather 
than  the  associative  character  of  Reconciliation.  The  tripartite  setting  forth 
of  the  work  of  Christ  as  prophet,  priest  and  king  fails  entirely  to  give 
proper  weight  to  the  significance  of  the  earthly  life  and  personality  of 
the  Lord  Jesus.  Questions  40  to  80  are  wholly  taken  up  with  the  repetition 
and  explanation  of  the  Ten  Commandments.  Here  we  might  profitably 
take  a  leaf  out  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  which  gives  the  contents 
of  the  two  tables  in  one  answer.  The  exposition  is  given  in  two  answers, 
summarizing  our  duty  to  God  and  to  our  fellow  men.  Both  catechisms, 
however,  failed  to  adopt  the  simple  expedient,  so  close  ;>t  hand,  of  adding 
as  expository  material  Jesus'  own  summary  of  the  law  and  the  fine  words 
of  the  Golden  Rule.  Our  catechism,  it  is  true,  incorporates  the  summary 
of  Jesus,  but  fails  to  get  the  benefit  of  its  expository  value,  by  Inserting  it 
at  Question  41,  before,  instead  of  after,  the  text  of  the  Decalogue.  As 
against  such  a  simple  scheme  (elaborated,  of  course,  with  oral  explanation), 
the  use  of  forty  questions  and  answers  is  cumbersome  and  ineffective. 
In  questions  84  and  85  the  fathers  fall  again  to  their  inevitable  task  of  ex- 
pounding the  plan  of  Salvation  as  a  means  of  escape  from  God's  wrath  and 
curse.  To  give  this  view  of  Redemption  an  important  place  in  an  Instru- 
ment to  be  used  in  the  Christian  nurture  of  children  is  surely  a  sad  case 
of  misdirected  energy.  I  venture  the  assertion  that  there  are  very  few  of 
us  who  wish  our  children  to  begin  the  Christian  life  after  the  manner  of 
a   flight   from    Bunyan's   City    of   Destruction. 

You  will  observe  that  In  the  foregoing  certain  omissions  In  the  catechism 
have  been  noted,   usually  by  implication.     Let  me  state  them  here  explicitly. 

(1)  Nowhere  In  the  whole  catechism  is  the  love  of  God  for  all  men 
stated  as  the  ultimate  ground  of  Redemption. 

(2)  The  value  of  the  Incarnation  as  God's  mode  of  effecting  the  supreme 
revelation  of  himself  In  human  life  is  only  vaguely  and  imperfectly  sug- 
gested   (Question    21). 

(3)  The  winning  personality  of  the  Master  Is  almost  lost  sight  of  In  the 
wilderness  of  words  defining  the  place  of  Christ  in  the  system  of  doctrine. 

(4)  There  is  a  woeful  lack  of  any  clear  and  inspiring  expression  of  the 
distinctive    Christian    Ideals    of    conduct,    self-sacrifice    and    service. 

We  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  the  form  of  the  catechism.  Our 
criticism  here  concerns  two  points:  (1)  The  phraseology,  because  of  the  effort 
to  attain  theological  precision  of  statement,  is  often  very  difficult,  while  It 
ought  to  be  simple  and  easily  understood;  (2)  It  is  dry,  hard  and  unemotional, 
rather  shunning  than  seeking  modes  of  expression  which  touch  the  heart.  The 
model  for  such  sentences  should  be  found  In  the  simplicity  and  beauty  of  the 


18 

great  passages  of  Scripture.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  Shorter  Catechism  is 
only  occasionally  simple  and  almost  never  beautiful.  Dignity  it  has,  beyond 
doubt,  but  it  is  the  dignity  of  a  carefully  written  official  document,  not  the  dig- 
nity—closely akin  to  beauty — of  a  soul-compelling  religious  utterance.  These  are 
not  the  phrases  that  leap  from  the  heart  to  the  lips  when  the  life  is  beset 
with     danger. 

To  put  the  matter  in  a  sentence,  the  attempt  to  compass  theological 
exactness  has  been  highly  detrimental  to  the  form  of  the  catechism.  In 
many  instances  the  consequence  has  been  to  treat  as  negligible  fine  Scriptural 
material  setting  forth  in  the  most  admirable  words  the  very  truth  under 
consideration.  Even  the  magnificent  and  awful  words  describing  the  nature 
of  God  are  not  comparable,  for  catechetical  use,  with  the  opening  clause 
of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  "Our  Father  who  art  in  Heaven  "  If  we  are  to 
speak  of  that  which  is  termed  theologically  the  "humiliation  of  Christ," 
the  catechism  tells  of  "his  being  born  and  that  in  a  low  condition,  made  under 
the  law,  undergoing  the  miseries  of  this  life,  the  wrath  of  God,  and  the 
cursed  death  of  the  cross;  in  being  buried,  and  continuing  under  the  power 
of  death  for  a  time."  How  much  better  to  say,  quoting  Heb.  2:10,  11,  that 
"It  became  God,  in  bringing  many  sons  to  glory,  to  make  the  Author  of 
our  salvation  perfect  through  sufferings.  For  both  He  that  sanctifieth  and 
they  that  are  sanctified  are  all  of  one;  for  which  cause  he  is  not  ashamed 
to  call  them  brethren."  The  religious  value  of  the  doctrine  is  suggested 
here  with  superlative  beauty.  Let  the  pastor  with  his  class  before  him  use 
that   for  his   text,   and  he   has   something  worth   expounding. 

Even  where  the  matter  Involved  is  in  the  very  essence  of  it  a  thing  of 
fervid  emotion,  the  statement  is  cold  to  the  point  of  frigidity.  Witness  the 
declaration  of  God's  provision  for  man's  salvation  (Question  20):  "God, 
having  out  of  his  mere  good  pleasure,  from  all  eternity,  elected  some 
to  everlasting  life,  did  enter  into  a  covenant  of  grace,  to  deliver  them  out 
of  the  estate  of  his  misery,  and  to  bring  them  into  an  estate  of  salva- 
tion by  a  Redeemer."  What  sinister  transformation  nas  been  wrought, 
to  turn  into  such  forbidding  guise  the  glorious  words  of  John  3:16,  "God  so 
loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son,  tiiat  whosoever  be- 
lieveth  on  him  should  not  perish,   but  have  eternal  life." 

It  all  comes  back  to  this:  The  nature  of  religious  truth  is  such  that 
it  cannot  be  expressed  with  exactitude.  The  memorable  passages  of  Scrip- 
ture aim  at  something  very  different.  They  are  soaring  expressions  of 
the  soul's  experience;  they  record,  not  what  the  ratiocinative  faculty  has 
wrought  out,  but  what  the  life  of  the  man  feels  when  touched  to  humble 
yet   joyful   devotion   by   contact   with    the   Spirit   of   God. 

I  beg  to  remind  you  that  the  foregoing  criticism  's  merely  a  brief 
review  of  the  reasons  why,  in  the  opinion  of  the  writer,  oar  church  is  ceas- 
ing to  use  the  Shorter  Catechism.  And,  on  the  whole,  they  seem  to  be 
good  reasons.  Whether  we  are  fully  conscious  of  it  or  not,  we  want  the 
contents  of  the  catechism  to  be  concerned  with  the  great  things  of  Chris- 
tian faith  and  life,  and  not  with  the  things  of  essentially  scholastic  Inter- 
est. We  want  phrases  which  shall  exercise  power  over  the  mind,  not 
by  the  compulsion  of  imperfect  logic  but  by  virtue  of  fine  spiritual  fervor. 
Our  tacit  ignoring  of  the  old  catechism  amounts,  I  think,  to  an  indictment 
of  it  on  both  counts.  Some  things  fundamentally  important  are  not  to  be 
found  there;  much  that  is  there  is  not  of  fundamental  importance.  Even 
when  its  statements  are  true  they  are  not  interesting;  they  may  be  im- 
portant but  they  are  not  spiritually  impressive.  The  divine  fire  is  as  essential 
to  the  life  of  religion  as  to  the  life  of  poetry.  Where  the  reading  leaves 
us  stone  cold,  how  can  we  hope  for  great  results  by  putting  these  hard 
and  discouraging  formulas  Into  the  eager  minds  of  the  young  people  In  our 
charge?  For  my  part,  I  would  rather  have  my  children  memorize  half 
a  dozen  hymns  such  as  "Jesus,  Saviour,  Pilot  Me,"  "The  Son  of  God  Goes 
Forth  to  War,"  and  "Christ  for  the  World  We  Sing,"  than  to  be  letter-perfecf 
in  all  the  official  catechisms  of  English-speaking  Christendom. 


19 

Yet  creeds  and  catechisms  do  but  follow  necessity  in  sounding  the  note 
of  controversy.  All  these  symbols  have  as  It  were  the  smell  of  fire  on  their 
garments.  They  are  noteworthy  documents  in  the  history  of  theological 
polemics.  Again  and  again,  in  face  of  the  great  questions  of  the  age, 
earnest  Christian  men  have  set  themselves  to  the  task  of  making  plain,  in 
hard  philosophical  phrases,  just  what  seemed  most  necessary  to  remember 
and  to  live  by,  and  what  most  needful  to  be  combated  and  put  to  rout. 
But  the  years  go  by,  and  with  their  passing  the  inevitoble  changes  come 
over  the  face  of  things  and  ideas.  Even  the  most  conservative  of  us,  if 
we  be  not  stocks  and  stones  but  men,  modify  our  views  until  our  theological 
forefathers  would  hardly  know  us  for  their  own.  And  thus  it  comes  to  pass 
that  we  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America  are 
leaving  the  Shorter  Catechism  out  of  our  Sunday-school  curriculum.  We 
feel  that  it  represents  a  struggle,  but  not  our  struggle;  we  know  that 
there  are  no  words  so  dead  as  those  which  make  the  phrases  of  a  dead 
controversy.  When  we  view,  now  and  then,  a  belated  quarrel  over  one  of 
these  issues,  it  is  as  though  we  were  looking  on  at  the  mimic  warfare  of 
children  on  some  old  battlefield.*  To  those  who  are  taking  part  in  the  en- 
gagement it  may  all,  for  the  time,  seem  real  enough;  to  the  onlooker  it  Is 
quite   certainly   child's   play. 

"A  struggle,  but  not  our  struggle";  which,  being  interpreted,  signifies 
that  the  new  catechism,  if  there  is  to  be  one,  will  also  be  the  proclama- 
tion of  a  strife.  Here  is  the  crucial  question:  What  is  the  present  struggle 
of  the  Church?  The  only  answer  that  is  large  enough  to  meet  the  situation 
is  this:  The  present  conflict  is  that  of  Christianity  as  th?  ultimate  religion 
with  all  irreligion;  it  is  the  fight  of  the  spiritual  against  all  materialism; 
it  is  the  struggle  of  those  beliefs  that  spring  out  of  faith  in  Man  as  the 
child  of  God  against  that  array  of  denials  whose  sire  is  the  hard  creed 
that  men  are  only  insignificant  pieces  of  a  soulless  Universe.  The  old 
catechisms  came  out  of  struggles  between  sects;  the  New  Catechism  must 
come   out   of   the  struggle   of   Christianity   against   Paganism. 

A  catechism  whose  motto  is  "Christus  contra  Mundum"  will  necessarily 
be  in  many  ways  a  new  thing  under  the  sun.  Its  emphases  will  render  It 
remarkable;  its  omissions  as  well  as  its  assertions  will  be  noteworthy.  When 
once  we  set  to  work  to  build  such  a  document,  we  shall  probably  not  care 
a  fig  whether  its  teachings  smack  of  Augustine  and  John  Calvin  or  not,  so 
long  as  they  show  forth  worthily  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  Sectarians 
we  may  have  to  remain  for  a  while,  on  purely  practical  grounds,  but  aggres- 
sive sectarianism  can  no  longer  pose  as  militant  Christianity.  We  may 
safely  make  the  following  suggestions  as  to  the  form  and  content  of  the 
New    Catechism. 

(1)  Its  phraseology  must  be  simple  and  ought  to  be  beautiful.  There 
will  be  but  slight  attempt  to  satisfy  the  taste  of  scholastics  who  have 
only  an  academic  interest  in  it,  but  very  earnest  effort  to  adapt  it  to 
the  hearts  and  minds  of  children  who  have  practical  need  of  it.  We  shall 
not  be  ashamed  to  state  religious  truth  in  emotional  terminology.  The 
thing  we  are  after  is  to  express  what  we  feel  about  human  life  and  Its 
meaning  from  the  Christian  point  of  view.  We  would  state  our  faith 
rationally  of  course,  but  we  dare  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  it  Is  faith, 
not  mathematics,  with  which  we  are  dealing;  that  the  words  we  use  must 
be  of  the  sort  that  carry  spiritual  conviction  rather  chan  mere  logical 
force.  No  statement  will  be  put  in  more  difficult  terms  than  appear  in  Its 
best  Scriptural  form.  We  have  to  do,  not  with  syllogisms,  but  with  pictures; 
we  are   estimating  not   quantities   but   values. 

(2)  As  to  content,  we  shall  restrict  our  material  to  the  consideration  of 
the  central  doctrines,  those  of  obviously  deep  religious  significance.  This  will 
result  in  decided  abbreviation  in  the  length  of  the  catechism,  a  matter 
of  some  advantage.  I  am  disposed  to  believe  that  a  much  greater  emphasis 
than  heretofore  will  be  placed  upon  the  practical  significance  of  the  dis- 
tinctively   Christian    mode    of    thinking.      We    shall    try    to    tell    what    Is    the 


20 
characteristic  conduct  of  Christians.  We  have,  as  churchmen,  been  accused 
of  handling  with  gloves  the  serious  moral  issues  of  our  time.  The  New 
Catechism  will  in  all  likelihood  have  something  plain  to  say  about  the  nec- 
essary consequences  of  believing  in  the  Brotherhood  of  Man  and  the  King- 
dom of  God. 

So  long  as  we  are  working  under  the  denominational  form,  it  may  be 
worth  while  to  give,  as  supplementary  material,  some  instruction  as  to  the 
peculiar  methods  of  Presbyterianism.  But  these  matters  will  be  stated  not 
as  the  phenomena  of  a  sacrosanct  Institution  but  as  the  modes  of  working 
which  we  have  found  most  useful  in  getting  our  part  of  the  work  of  the 
Church  accomplished.  In  using  the  catechism  we  are  to  remember  that  it 
is  mere  superstition  to  suppose  that  a  catechism  must  be  memorized  in  toto. 
A  catechetical  answer  may  best  be  regarded,  not  as  a  final  statement  of 
the  truth  Involved,  but  as  a  basis  for  conscientious  and  careful  exposition. 

And  now,  who  Is  ready  for  the  work?  Who  will  make  us  this  catechism? 
A  difficult  question,  no  doubt,  answerable  for  the  present  only  in  the  follow- 
ing terms:  If  pastors,  Individually  or  In  groups,  will  make  the  effort  to  evolve 
some  scheme  of  catechetical  Instruction  for  the  children  In  their  own  charge, 
we  shall  have  taken  the  first  step  in  the  right  direction. 

I  am  not  at  all  sure  but  that  some  such  catechism  has  already  been 
written.  I  am  confident  that  scores  of  them  might  be  written,  any  one  of 
which  would  be  more  useful  than  the  one  which  we  are  so  unanimous  in 
venerating  and  neglecting.  All  that  we  need  for  the  accomplishment  of 
the  task  Is  a  faith  In  the  validity  of  our  religious  experience  worthy  to  be 
placed  beside  our  faith  in  the  validity  of  Scripture.  It  Is  surely  just  as 
sound  orthodoxy  to  hold  that  the  Spirit  of  God  Is  a  guide  for  us,  as  It  is  to 
hold  that  he  guided  Augustine  and  Calvin,  and— may  we  not  add  ?— Armlnlus. 
It  is  not  a  question  of  ability;  we  are  just  as  competent  to  meet  this  serious 
problem  of  our  time  as  the  Presbyterians  of  two  or  three  centuries  ago 
were  to  meet  theirs.  It  is  not  faith  but  skepticism  that  makes  us  withhold 
our  hands  from  doing  what  God  has  set  as  our  task  for  today. 

We  are  to  conclude  then  that  it  Is  a  question  of  courage,  the  product 
of  a  living  faith.  There  Is  no  room  in  the  present  for  institutions  whose 
respect  for  the  past  Is  so  great  that  It  stands  in  the  light  of  living  needs. 
Jesus  rebuked  the  men  of  his  day  because  they  could  not  read  the  signs  of 
the  times.  His  thrilling  words,  "It  was  said  by  them  of  old  .  .  .  but  I  say 
unto  you",  carries  to  the  hearts  of  his  disciples  in  every  age  a  burning 
contagion  of  the  spirit  they  must  who  would  follow  Him.  The  world, 
both  religious  and  pagan,  is  giving  its  millions  to  the  great  cause  of  secular 
education.  Ferrer  in  Spain  only  the  other  day  gave  his  life  for  what  was 
to  him  the  cause  of  education.  Yet  Ferrer  was  an  anarchist— and  an 
atheist.  If  sheer  humanltarlanism  can  carry  a  man  so  far;  If  the  enthusiasm 
for  Liberty  Is  of  such  power  as  this,  what  marvellous  accomplishment 
should  be  ours  under  the  Impelling  force  of  the  Gospel  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ!  How  much  time,  how  much  careful  and  loving  labor  ought  not 
we,  the  appointed  leaders  of  the  Church,  to  give,  that  the  boys  and  girls 
In  our  charge  may  become  well-instructed,  fearless  and  consecrated  Christians! 

It  is  the  gift  of  God  that  we  are  heirs  of  a  glorious  past.  It  is  no  less 
his  decree  that  makes  us  bondmen  to  ideals  which  have  not  yet  had  their 
perfect  realization,  and  will  not  have  it  until  the  souls  of  men  are  fast 
tied  together  in  the  love  of  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord.  It  »s  to  the  bringing 
In  of  the  Kingdom  that  we  are  called.  The  Cltj-  of  God  is  still  building. 
Christ  Is  with  us— If  we  build.  It  Is  his  voice  we  hear:  "Lo,  I  am  with 
you  alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world." 


Republican  Print,  Johnstown,  N.  Y. 


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